For some reason I could not name, after that happened, I thought to go see Deacon Moody. Not for help–I was beyond that–but perhaps simply so I could remember something of my younger days. It is said that, as death approaches, one often relives the events of one’s life.
When I reached the Grassmarket, however, I found no sign of Moody. I inquired here and there and soon learned that the Deacon had been found a few months ago, dead.
“How did it happen?” I asked the grog seller who told me the news.
“By his own deed,” the woman said, wiping hands against her dirty smock to no effect. “ ’Tis whispered both his wrists were laid open, and that into each he had carved the figure of a cross.”
She pressed her thin lips together and made the sign of the cross herself. I turned and left without a word, feeling neither sad nor stunned, simply empty. The dead cannot feel, the Deacon had said. I pressed a hand to my heart, yet it seemed forged of iron. Not even my swollen lip hurt. I walked back toward my crib, and I did not think of Deacon Moody again.
I might have died that day, curled up like a dog on my matted bed, but something roused me from my torpor. Only what was it? It had sounded like the bells of the Tron kirk, only clearer, more distant. Purer.
Pulling myself up with weak arms, I peered out the narrow slit in the wall that passed for a window. Outside the day was ending, and twilight filtered down between the tenements like soot. A shadow moved on the street below. It vanished around a corner, heading up toward High Street, but I had caught a glimpse of a black robe, its hem stained with mud, and of lank gray hair.
Was this sight a hallucination brought on by fever, a regurgitation of what I had learned in the Grassmarket that day? Or was it something more? It is sometimes said that ghosts appear to those who are near to death themselves.
Even now, after more than three centuries, I still believe it is the latter of these two explanations that was true. Regardless, I knew I must follow the man in the black robe.
New strength flooded my body. I felt bright and powerful of a sudden, as a candle flaring just before it burns out. I flung myself through the door of my crib and down the rickety stairs of the tenement, then out onto the street. Though evening fell, the spring air was balmy, and already tainted with the rich scent of rot that would ripen into a stifling miasma as summer drew close. A black cat slunk away from me, crossing my path as I lurched up the lane toward High Street.
I saw the shadow once more as I reached the Tron, just vanishing around the corner of the church, then again drifting past St. Giles cathedral. Why I followed the wraith, I do not know. I had no words for Deacon Moody, except perhaps to ask if he was glad he was dead, if he felt nothing now. The thought occurred to me that I was dead myself–truly dead–and even at that moment my corpse lay stiffening in the crib as the first rats discovered me, squealing their delight.
The world darkened around me, torches and lanterns burning like distant stars. I saw the shadow just ahead, beckoning to me, and I followed through an archway. Muted laughter drifted on the air. I rubbed my eyes and saw that I was no longer on the High Street, but rather in a courtyard. It seemed familiar to me, and then I saw the moldy stone plaque on the wall. ADVOCATE’S CLOSE, it read. There was no trace of the shadow I had followed.
“Well, what have we here?” said a rough voice.
I turned and saw a man in the archway, illuminated by dirty light spilling out of windows above. He was big, clad all in blue. A grin parted the thatch of his red beard, and I recognized him as the constable I had fled from earlier that day.
“What is it, MacKenzie?” A second shadow appeared in the archway. He was short and heavy‑shouldered, his voice slurred with drink.
“It’s the devil’s own, that’s who,” the constable said, stalking forward at a leisurely pace. The iron gate behind me was locked. “Tell me, boy, given anyone Lucifer’s Kiss today?”
His companion laughed. “So he’s one of those, is he? How about you bend yerself over, MacKenzie, and let him plant a kiss on you.”
“Shut your trap, Ralph,” the constable said, glaring. “I’m no lover of Satan or his ilk. Not like this whelp. A scourge on this city, you are.” He edged closer, big hands flexing.
I didn’t move. “You can’t hurt me,” I said quietly.
“Think so?” he said with a hard laugh. “Your face looks bad enough from where I got you this morning. Did I ruin your pretty looks? Well, there’s plenty more where that came from. You may serve Satan now, but I can beat the fear of God into you.”
I didn’t flinch as his fist descended toward my cheek. He could not harm me. I was beyond that now. Although I had not thought of her in many months, I called out to her now.
I’m coming, Mother!
“Stay your hand,” spoke a deep voice.
It seemed impossible, given the force and speed behind it, but the constable’s fist froze not an inch from my cheek.
“What’s wrong with you, MacKenzie?” the short man said. “Come on, give the whelp a good one.”
“I can’t,” the constable said through clenched teeth. Sweat glittered his brow. His arm shook, as if all his muscles strained, but his fist moved no closer.
“Bloody Hell, if you’ve gone all soft, then I’ll do it.” The one named Ralph marched forward and reached for me with both hands.
“I said stay,” the voice intoned.
Ralph went stiff as a corpse, arms before him, and his eyes bulged. A gurgle sounded low in his throat, but he made no other sound. A figure clad all in black parted from the shadows and drifted into view. It was not the ghost of Deacon Moody.
“Are you well, James?” he said, gazing down at me.
I tried to speak, but I seemed as paralyzed as the two men. I had grown since our last meeting, but the stranger still towered over me, and his voice–full of danger a moment ago–had been as resonant with kindness as I remembered. A stray shaft of light illuminated his face, and I thought it stern and wise and handsome.
“Who are you?” I finally found the breath to ask.
“That is a long tale, and there is no time to tell it now, James. I would that you come with me tonight.”
I glanced at the two motionless men. Spittle dribbled from their mouths.
“You can do with me as you would,” I said. “I can’t stop you.”
He bent down and, as he had long ago, laid a hand on my shoulder. “No, James. I’m not like them. I will not make you do something you would not. I want you to come with me because you choose it, because you want something better for yourself than what you have been given. Because you want to live.”
A moan escaped me. For so long I had believed I was dead, capable of feeling nothing. Only I had been terribly wrong, for at that moment a pain pierced my heart, and a longing came over me–though for what I could not name, except that I thought of the calling of the bells that had awakened me, and how clear the sound had been. I thought as well of Deacon Moody, and how he had wished to save me. Perhaps he had after all.
“I will come with you,” I said.
“I am glad, James.” Keeping his strong hand on my shoulder, he guided me from the close, past the two men who stood still as statues, and like ghosts ourselves we passed into the night.
While it was years before I would finally learn the secret of the Sleeping Ones, before my own eyes would become gold as his, the moment I walked from Advocate’s Close with the stranger was the moment I left death behind and first embarked upon the path to immortality.